The wedding of billionaire Adam Bloch and Maisie Maclaren is the event of the year in Clement's Cove, Maine-a town in which the mansion-like 'cottages' of the summering elite sit side-by-side with the modest homes of working-class locals. Adam, a shy, tentative man with a terrible tragedy in his past, has, at fifty-four, reached the moment in his life when he feels he is finally ready to live-and yet he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. When Maisie asks for a lap pool so she can strengthen her body, debilitated by years of Hodgkin's disease, Adam approaches his neighbour with a generous offer to buy the plot of land on which her trailer sits to make room for the pool. She refuses, and a chain of events is set in motion that pits Adam against his neighbours, the new rich against those scraping by, outsider against old-timer, in an escalating struggle that can only end in catastrophe.